Maria Fekter, the Austrian Finance Minister, has declared victory in her lonely battle against her 26 European Union neighbours to maintain her country’s banking secrecy and avoid reporting on the accounts of foreigners to the tax authorities.

Dismissing suggestions that her position had left Austria under pressure and isolated, the woman who last week defied pressure and vowed to “fight like a lion” to defend the country’s banking rules insisted that she had emerged on top after talks with her peers in Dublin over the weekend.

“I can even report a success,” she said in an interview with Austrian newspaper